Server Parts Warranty Question

I asked my account manager for a quote for a DRAC5 card to fit an existing customers PowerEdge 2900 server.

The server has another 3 years of the Dells five year warranty to go.

I asked my account manager, if the card I was about to order would be covered by the existing warranty in place on the server. No I was told the card would only be covered for a year, but he gave me a contact in warranty support to call to get it included.

When I spoke to someone in the warranty team they said that they could not even give me a rough indication of what the additional warranty cost would be until I had purchased the card and given them it's tag no.

I went back to my account manager who said that a DRAC card hasn't got a tag but he was able to give me the Dell part no.

I spoke to a different person in the warranty section, who told me that the if a server part did not have it's own Service Tag No. i.e. a DRAC card then it would be automatically covered by the existing server warranty. I went back to my account manager with this information, he didn't believe it, put me through to Technical Support who said that if I purchased a DRAC card for a server with a five year warranty the card would only only be covered for one year.

HELP !!!

Does anybody know what is right ? I can't believe that larger companies and Dell themselves have to track the individual orders of all cards, extra hard disks etc. that are purchased for servers still under warranty.

As I understand it. If the card was purchased originally as part of the computer's configuration, it is included in the original warranty. If the card is purchased after the computer purchase, then added to the computer, then it will only have 1 yr of warranty.

I just found out that some server parts have different warranties, hold on, and I'll see if I can get a better answer for you.

I had to double check with some of our support/sales people. If you buy a Dell branded part and it goes inside our system, then it is covered by whichever warranty is greater. If the card has a one year and you have three years left on the server, then the card is now covered by the server's warranty. Hope that helps.

In Dell's Basic Hardware Service Description, on Page 5, the following is stated :-

Other add-on hardware carries the longer of either a 1-year limited hardware warranty for new parts and a 90-daylimited hardware warranty for reconditioned parts or, for both new and reconditioned parts, the remainder of thewarranty for the Dell computer on which such parts are installed.